Talk:Historical rankings of presidents of the United States

Oops!

Sorry about the mass delete earlier today. That was a mistake on my part. 01:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Jackson

Can somebody who knows supply a clearer probable explanation for Jackson's high ranking than "Overall effectiveness, charisma, nationalism"? Bds yahoo 22:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC) OK, did this myself. Feel free to improve it.

Also took out "not married" as a probable reason for Buchanan's low presidential ranking [!]. Bds yahoo 00:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Please look at the rankings that appear in the Pfiffner book. They are not the personal opinions of individuals. User:66.20.28.21

To make the page more NPOV, it needs to be said that the Pfiffner rankings are not the definitive list. The article mentions George W. Bush as "ineptitude supreme", and so it must be noted that Robert Byrd is a Democrat. This puts context to the quote. Also, you cannot say that one book has ranked all the Presidents in such a way that no one person can argue. It must be mentioned that these are published opinions, otherwise this is merely an editorial page, which Wikipedia is not. Harro5 (talk · contribs) 22:40, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

I have expanded this page considerably, adding two other surveys, which will help to balance POV issues. —Lowellian (talk) 22:06, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Byrd quotes and rankings chart

Honestly I see no reason to put the Byrd quotes in. They are from one man, not an organization, as are the others, nor are they intended to be neutral. Simply because he has worked with many Presidents does not make him worthy of being the only individual mentioned in this article.--Arcaynn 05:37, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

I've eliminated the essentially off-topic Byrd quotes, and made a chart with poll results from various years. --Kevin Myers 04:26, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the removal of the Byrd quotes. —Lowellian (talk) 16:28, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I added labels to the column headings of the chart. —Lowellian (talk) 16:36, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

That may crowd the chart too much in the future, because at least 3 or 4 more polls could be added to the chart: there's a 1996 Schlesinger Jr. poll out there somewhere; the Siena link has results for three polls if we use them all, and we might want to add a column for the CSPAN viewer results as well. A short-hand version of your labels might be needed. --Kevin Myers 16:56, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm trying to go with short names; so far everything still fits, even in an 800x600 resolution. I've added all the Siena polls; can you see about adding the 1948 Schlesinger poll results? We should try to include as many poll results as we can. —Lowellian (talk) 17:14, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't seen the 1948 Schlesinger Sr. poll results anywhere, but I'll keep an eye out for them, as should anyone else reading this. I just know about it because it's frequently mentioned as the first such poll. Schlesinger Jr. (the more famous of the two) also did a poll about 1996, which hopefully someone can track down. --Kevin Myers 02:31, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Source for 1948 data?

Thanks to anonymous user User:138.88.221.146 for adding the 1948 poll results [1]. If the user is monitoring this page, then a small request: could the user also please give a citation for the book or paper in which the results are found? That would be nice to have. —Lowellian (reply) 15:55, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Chart averaging

Does it not make more sense to take an average of the polls we're using and list the President's that way? Marskell 12:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Several problems with this:

1. First, polls are constantly being added, which would require updating the averages each time, which the people adding the polls might not be prepared to do and would require someone else monitoring the page to calculate averages of the numbers.
2. Second, the polls each have different numbers of Presidents (some Presidents appear in some polls but not others), which would make the calculating averages in this way a bit statistically sketchy.
3. Third, the weights for the averages could be off. Notice that, as of this writing, George Washington is ranked 4th four times — but only in the Siena polls, with all other polls placing Washington in the top 3. Doing a straight average would perhaps inappropriately or unfairly weight repeated polls (for example, Siena polls appear four times, but most other polls only appear once) with a specific methodology against other polls.

There may also be a couple other problems with averaging that I haven't thought of off the top of my head. —Lowellian (reply) 18:07, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

---

It absolutely makes no sense at all to "average" these numbers. This is similar to measuring your son's height each year and then taking an average of it after 12 years or so... proves NOTHING, and mean NOTHING.

I think whoever thought it was logical to average those numbers should take a look at the methodology of how these polls are conducted just to get a slight idea of how averaging doesn't make sense.

On an unrelated note... Both Schlesinger (Dad & Son), CSPAN, and the Wall Street Journal has the best and most accurate methodology. Schlesinger Son didn't have creditability (as a statistician) but since he used (in 1996) almost the same model as his father, his poll is considered to have a strong methodology. Arthur M. Schlesinger - Dad and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s - Son. [Stan]17:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Another objection to the averaging of the polls is that it creates a new set of data original to Wikipedia, and is thus, in a sense, original research. However, it seems to me that the "no original research" policy is widely ignored, so I no longer make a fuss about it. --Kevin

I know that the avererage of those number isn't valid, but it gives people a (very) rough idea of what the consensus of all scholars would be; it still can have some use for some people, so I say keep it. -arctic gnome 01:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Other polls

For you presidential trivia buffs, there are still other, well-known polls out there not yet added to the chart:

• The 1996 Schlesinger poll, available on the 'net.
• The C-SPAN viewer poll.

And these books provide others rankings:

• Bailey, Thomas. Presidential Greatness: The Image and the Man, From George Washington to the Present. New York: Irvington, 1978.
• Murray, Robert K. and Tim H. Blessing. Greatness in the White House: Rating the Presidents, Washington Through Carter. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980.

In addition, any number of popular "top 10 surveys" of the general public (usually conducted by newspapers) could be collected on a second chart.

I'm short on time right now, so I can't do it, but I hope others will keep at it. Have fun! --Kevin Myers | on Wheels! 15:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

There was recently an internet poll based on which president had the greatest effect on the world from the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University, with Franklin Roosevelt ultimately beating out George Washington in the final. [2] [3] I'd like to include this as an example of another poll but wasn't sure where to put it, so if anyone would like to add it that would be great. -- Fearfulsymmetry 03:30, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Caption to Lincoln pic

1) I can't think of any assasination that I would likely describe as "timely" 2) How does having been assasinated contribute to his supposed greatness? Anyway, I'm removing the statement. --Easter Monkey 08:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Timely is probably a politically incorrect term - there must be a good word meaning "if he hadn't have died when he did there would be no myth surrounding him". "Didn't overstay his welcome" - kind of wordy. 2) A serious scholar can give you information about LIncoln that shows you the "real" man and a good glimpse of his motives. It is not a pretty picture.

Caption to Lincoln pic possible answer, and other poll not listed or mentioned.

Abraham Lincoln while he was alive was one of the most hated men of his day, both in the north and in the south. a lot like George W. Bush only the hate for him held by the ten anti war crowd during the Civil war was even greater in the north, and almost absolute in the south.

It was not until after he had died, that people started to look back on what he actual did and what he actual was trying to stand for. That is when he became one of the greatest presidents in American history if not the greatest.

Poll:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/poll020221_president.html

The poll is not a measure of love and hate--it's a measure of performance. Lincoln was hated because he saved the Union and freed the slaves. On the other hand, Harding was loved & nobody seemed to dislike him much. Rjensen 03:05, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Stupidity of including 1948, 1961 polls in averages

Considering there were numerous fewer presidents back then, older presidents will receive a bias in the average ranking category. For example, Adams was originally a top-10 president back when only 29 were ranked. Now he is four points lower because so many new presidents are ranked. However, why should he get a lower cumulative score just because he gets to include the 48 and 61 polls, as well as maybe the 82 polls? These polls are too old to be used to cumulate a president's average ranking. We should stick to polls within the last 10-15 years to remove such a bias. Bsd987 20:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

there's no "bias" here, because the "top 10" criterion is artificial. Rjensen 03:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

drop "likely reason" section as unencyclopedic

I suggest we simply drop the "likely reasons" scholars supposedly have --it is based based on no evidence whatever about the beliefs of scholars and has become a pin-tail-on-donkey/elephant game. It's become more than silly, it can seriously mislead our users . Rjensen 01:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't object, though I resent the donkey/elephant characterization. I've made a great deal of these contributions and although they may be flawed based on research errors, I have meticulously avoided making partisan judgments since these rankings are based on the judgments of scholars of all political persuasions (though some may -- perhaps rightly -- dispute my inclination to see A. Johnson's "impeding" Reconstruction as non-NPOV).

For example, I cited "presiding over end of Cold War" and "Great Communicator" as likely resons for Reagan's high ranking, though personally I think he is a very overrated president and doesn't deserve such a high ranking. Likewise I listed "Great Society" and "Civil Rights" as reasons for LBJ's high ranking and left out Vietnam b/c we are talking about reasons for high (not low) opinion of him by scholars.

I admit this tends to lead toward whitewashing the VERY checkered careers of high-ranking presidents like Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson, and overlooking the noteworthy achievements of low-ranking presidents like, say, Hoover. Bds yahoo 03:37, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

if you ask "why wasn't he ranked higher" then you need to add the negatives too. But parts are getting 8th grade in quality (Buchanan, B Harrison, Van Buren, Madison, Reagan, Wilson) Rjensen 03:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Great--I would love to see your additions, then! US History isn't my primary field of specialization. I'm just contributing what I can, and striving for accuracy. Bds yahoo 03:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

p.s. 8th grade or not, surely Reagan's high ranking is based exactly on the perception that he brought about the end of the Cold War, and his rhetorical "optimism." I can't think of any more substantive reasons for his high ranking, but would love to know what they are. Bds yahoo 03:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Reagan "often" rounds out top ten?

"The remaining "top 10" ranks are often rounded out by Andrew Jackson, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan."

According to data supplied in the article itself, Reagan only rounds out top ten in only two surveys, so I am going to restore James Polk's name, and ask that the Anonymous Editor who plugged Reagan in here please explain his ro her reason for editing in the Edit Summary next time. Bds yahoo 13:55, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed Bush and Clinton

...and restored category heading that says "Reason for very high or very low ranking." (Used to say "extreme" but somebody mistook that for POV and foolishly removed it.) Presidents ranked toward the middle are more likely to be leaders about whom no clear scholarly consensus has emerged (which is probably why most recent presidents are ranked in the middle) and so it's a mugs game to try to summarize it. Besides, even if a consensus already existed about recent presidents as Clinton and Bush, we will end up with edit wars if we presume to declare the scholarly assessment of presidents whose legacies remain unclear (esp. George W. Bush, who is still in office). Bds yahoo 16:59, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

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The "likely contributing factors for very high or very low ranking" column is really just opinion, and thus not suitable. Better would be something like "significant events". Derex 00:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh boy. I don't oppose it on principle, but in practice, you are now going to have edit wars over Clinton and the Bushes.George Kaplan 04:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

What one may do could be to divide the "significant events" column into a "positive factors" column and a "negative factors" column (a sort of pros & cons approach.) Sophia 81 22:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

George Bush cant be on this it says Historical rankings of United States Presidents George W. Bush is still president its not a valid ranking his term isnt even done.

Add new polls

we need to add the Blessing & Murray poll -- what's the best way to squeeze them in or reconfigure the main list?? It has a poll of 846 historians in 1982. Rjensen 03:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen, do you have a link to this data on-line? UPDATE Ah, I found it here. I can add this data but I'll leave it to somebody else to adjust the averages. George Kaplan 03:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I have the book (page 16); the ratings are (in order):

• 1-2-3-4 Lincoln, F. Roosevelt, Washington, Jefferson
• 5-6-7-8 T. Roosevelt, Wilson, Jackson, Truman
• 9-to 17: J. Adams, L. Johnson, Eisenhower, Polk, Kennedy, Madison, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Cleveland
• 18-26 McKinley, Taft, Van Buren, Hoover, Hayes, Arthur, Ford, Carter, B. Harrison
• 27-31: Taylor, Tyler, Fillmore, Coolidge, Pierce
• 32-36: A. Johnson, Buchanan, Nixon, Grant, Harding

Rjensen 03:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Great--I have entered the data and will double check now. I don't know who does the averages for these things--too bad you can't automate a la Excel (or can you?). I know you don't care for averages anyway, though. George Kaplan 03:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

very nice job! I will add some of the Murray-Blessing analysis (for example, how different were liberal and conservative historians?) Rjensen 05:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Very valuable addition, Rjensen. I decided to compute the new averages myself and will input them now. George Kaplan 12:43, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed error calculations in descriptions of polls

Errors shown in 'press releases' of polls should be taken as dodgy by default unless methodology used is shown to peer review.

article has two components: 1) Presidential greatness 2) how we rank leaders

In regards to the Holli reference. I reviewed the publication from Melvin G. Holli, "The American Mayor: The Best and the Worst Big-City Leaders. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999". It is essentially a review of American Mayors but makes no reference to Presidents. I can agree with keeping the historian, but the extension you keep putting in ---which have been extended to cover the greatest mayors as well---offers nothing to the article. /anon/

what the Holli book offers is a discussion of the "Ranking" problem, which is half the title after all. In other words this is an article about two different things, 1) presidential greatness and 2) ranking leaders. Holli is very useful because it breaks away from the presidents and strongly held political opinions. Rjensen 18:46, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Average column

There is a HUGE logic error in the 'Average' column... which is going to get worse and worse over time. The growing number of Presidents gives early poorly-ranked Presidents an unintended "boost" of their average.

To use a grossly exagerrated example for maximum effect:

Imagine an average of Harding's ratings in the 1948 survey, and two fictional surveys from the year 2400... 1948: 29 (worst) 2300 A: 118 (worst) 2300 B: 118 (worst) Average: 88. Suddenly he's out of the worst 1/4, even though he's been consistently ranked the worst president ever?

Obviously this effect is relatively small right now, but it's going to get much bigger... Tmorrisey 09:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

the solution is to use percentiles. but let's wait 20 years. Rjensen 16:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of more than half the article

Wandering Star deleted more than half the article for reasons not clear to me anyway (and not documented here), leaving only one table. Perhaps this was an error? Shall we put the discussion, other tables and images back in? Crust 17:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think this was totally unwarranted. In fact, I brought a book in to work today to add to the article. It's Reassessing the Presidency, put out by the Mises Institute in 2001. It has an excellent article on libertarian presidential rankings that turns the conservative-liberal consensus on its head. More than that, it's totally objective -- based on government size and growth, and inflation of the money supply. If someone reverts the article back to its prior glory, I'll add in this libertarian perspective. --Gilguillory 17:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I reverted it. Crust, do you want to put your edits in again? --Gilguillory 17:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. Crust 18:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Libertarian ranking

Gilguillory, it looks like you got the libertarian rating inverted compared to the convention in the rest of the article. Either that or these are some highly contrarian folks who think that Lincoln was the worst president and Harding the best. ;) Crust 18:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I confirm that the ranking is correct -- Lincoln is considered to be the worst president by many libertarian historians. --Gilguillory 12:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That surprises me. I don't pretend to know either way, but it really seems a strange idea to me that "many libertarian historians" would think that the president most associated with the end of slavery in the US (Lincoln) was the worst. The methodology also seems curious to me in many ways. For one thing, the measure given doesn't distinguish between Congress and the President (who both have a hand in determining spending). It doesn't even seem like that great of a measure of the federal government to me; the policies set by Congress and the President are far from the only determinant of inflation during their terms. Also, there is a peculiar bias against recent politicians (peculiar a priori, not unexpected given methodology): of the last 10 presidents, the highest ranked (Clinton) is still listed as the thirteenth worst of all time. Crust 17:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

the liberatrians are a funny bunch. They do NOT use an indicator like greatest increase in GDP, because that would make FDR tops. They do not ask about freeing 4 million slaves because that would make Lincoln top. Rjensen 17:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

There are so many things that are strange (to me anyway) about this methodology I didn't bother to get into them all. I agree with you, real GDP growth would be much more natural than CPI (inflation); as you say that would boost FDR's rank. Among other issues, economists usually look at inflation as something that can be too low as well as too high, so it doesn't make sense to rank a president higher the lower inflation was on his watch. Crust 17:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I demoted the discussion of this in the article from a lenghty section of its own to one or two sentences in the conservative/liberal section. Rjensen, has a gone a step further and deleted it altogether. I'm fine with that (I initially reverted his/her edit because I thought it wasn't deliberate). I'm obviously also fine with just one or two sentences as I left it. Just thought I'd clarify my view here in case there is any confusion. Crust 18:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the Vedder piece. It does not actually try to rank all the presidents--he just says, look this quickie hypthetical model gives a totally different result. To my knowledge no group of libertarians has made a real ranking. So we can leave the biblio entry for people who might be interested. Rjensen 18:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense to me. Crust 18:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

RJensen, Crust, it is clear that Vedder and Gallaway are indeed ranking the presidents. Though they admit that it is a rough model, there is discussion about why they chose the various models they did. Further, this ranking was of interest to a major libertarian think tank that included it in an already overfull collections of articles on the presidency. It is indeed reflective of the libertarian viewpoint. You may not agree with that viewpoint, but it is a ranking, it is published by a major libertarian think tank, and it adds new information content to this encyclopedia topic in a way that a mere 1 or 2 sentences cannot. And the reader will not notice a bibliographic entry that is not referred to unless he's doing a research paper. The casual reader of wikipedia looks for richness. I've added this section back.--Gilguillory 19:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Memory

"He who controls the past, controls the future" -Jozef Stalin.

How are we to remember the past Presidents? The answers you choose depend largely on your political views today. Was Reagan responmsible for winning the Cold War? Or shall we remember him for the Iran-Contra fiasco, the AIDS crisis, and his steady loss of mental acuity? I guess that all depends on who you ask. A Republican will more likely talk in terms of the former, a Democrat the latter. Thus, I wonder if articles like this can ever truly be NPOV. One editor with a particualr viewpoint may choose to delete the edit by another editor which points out something unflattering about his favourite President. Or, another editor may choose to include material that glorifies his faves, while villainizing those he despises.

Probably the only Presidents safe from this sort of thing are those who nobody really remembers much any more, like Polk or Van Buren. Chester Arthur probably doesn't inspire very much hate or sympathy in anyone, so we can rest assured his description will be NPOV.

As for the others? Notice how the most recent Presidents and the most controversial ones have the item they are remembered for change from one day to the next. Note the long lists on theirs, compared to the relatively empty ones for people like Warren Harding.

Can this article ever really be NPOV so long as such a description remains? Maybe we'd be better off if we'd just delete it all together, and leave the descriptions of what they are remembered for for the pages on each individual President. After all, what's a Republican to do when some Democrat posts soemthing unflattering about George W Bush, but to erase it and post something even more unflattering about Bill J. Clinton? Everyone's got a Point Of View (POV) about those two. And let's not even get into Carter or Bush Sr. Wandering Star 23:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)